NL Notes: Cubs, Heyward, Pirates, Morton, Span

The Cubs have several players, including Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist, Dexter Fowler and Trevor Cahill that turned down more money elsewhere to sign in Chicago, tweets Jon Heyman. The Cardinals’ best offer is to Heyward is “thought to [have been]” $200MM over 10 years, while the Nationals, as previously reported, offered the outfielder $200MM+ over 10 years, albeit with significant deferrals, Heyman tweets. The three bids between the two teams were pretty much comparable (link), but Heyward simply preferred the Cubs over the other clubs. The outfielder, he adds, liked the team’s nucleus and, personally, he has a good history of playing at Wrigley. Heyman also notes that the other teams would have been willing to give him an opt-out as well.

A few more notes from around the NL…

Charlie Morton is hopeful that his groundball-inducing ways will translate to hitter-friendly Citzens Bank Park, PhillyVoice’s Ryan Lawrence writes. Morton produced a 4.81 ERA, 6.7 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9 pitching with the Pirates, although with an excellent 57.3% ground ball rate. “I had a theory about smaller parks, and the ground that outfielders have to cover, it’s minimized when you have a smaller park,” Morton says. “So if you can pitch to contact and pitch to weak contact, especially ground balls, I think you’ll do really well. Knock on wood, but I’ve had some success at Great American Ball Park, Great American Small Park. I think some of the reason why that is is because if I’m inducing weak contact or ground balls.” Morton has, indeed, posted a career 3.83 ERA in 54 innings at “Great American Small Park,” better than his career 4.54 ERA. That could merely be a sample-size issue, however. In any case, if Morton succeeds in the tight confines of Citizens Bank Park, he could perhaps, as Lawrence points out, fetch a prospect or two for the Phillies this summer.

Highly touted minor league right-handers Jameson Taillon and Tyler Glasnow represent options this season should any pitcher in the Pirates’ rotation fall to injury or struggle significantly, GM Neal Huntington told Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. However, while the Pirates recognized that Taillon and Glasnow could factor into the club’s rotation in 2016, they didn’t bank on that fact. Pittsburgh added veterans Jon Niese (via trade with the Mets) and Ryan Vogelsong (via free agency) to round out the rotation. Huntington noted that Glasnow still needs to refine his changeup before making it to the Major Leagues, saying Glasnow is “still doing minor league hitters a favor” when he turns to his changeup over his electric fastball. Taillon is now two years removed from Tommy John surgery and will have his innings monitored this year.

Giants outfielder Denard Span talked with MLB Network Radio’s Cliff Floyd and Casey Stern about his free agency this winter and his goals for his first season with the Giants (audio link). “This team, they took a chance on me,” said Span. “A lot of other teams were shying away, but the Giants just showed how much they really wanted me, and so it made it an easy decision for me. … The fact that they pursued me and pursued a couple other guys — [Jeff] Samardzija and [Johnny] Cueto — it makes me feel good that they feel like, they didn’t go to the postseason last year, and I’m one of the missing pieces to help them get back there.” Among the other topics covered by Span are his first impressions of future Hall of Fame skipper Bruce Bochy and how he plans to work on outfield communication with the man he displaced in center field — Angel Pagan (who will now slide over to left field).

I’m not as sold on the Dodgers as most people, Greinke is a huge blow obviously but a lot of people don’t realize how much glue Mattingly was to that team, I could see that clubhouse just having no control now, Mattingly did not receive nearly enough credit with how he handled the Ethier/Puig situation. With all eyes on the Dbacks and Dodgers it sets up nicely for the Giants.

Honestly I am going with the dbacks to win the division , I think they did enough to get it done, Adding greinke and trading for miller to go with corbin as a solid 3 in the rotation. Scored the second most runs in the nl last year, I still think they could use another bullpen piece but I think they could win it, but the even year magic of the giants I am not buying into it.

@johnmillerjones The DBacks and Giants have a better team on paper right now than the Dodgers.. The only talent that the Dodger have over the division is their young talent, but 1/2 of them are not MLB ready yet. The Dodgers have the potential to be scary good in a few years but not this year… I have them finishing 3rd.

mattingly was an overrated manager. great hitter. he was not a good leader. he was inconsistant. he would bench puig for doggin it down the first base line then pat gonzalez on the rump for doing the same thing. please dont call me a troll.

But they only have one Kershaw and a bunch of injury risks and an unknown quantity in Maeda. They already lost Anderson for a while. The Giants have the better infield and rotation as of right now. DBacks look solid all around. Don’t see the Dodgers finishing higher than third this year, but injuries could hit anyone at any time, so who knows.

As for Heyward picking the Cubs we should state the obvious if he wins a ring on that team his earning power would greatly outdo any of the other teams and his post career earning power would also increase look what Kevin Millar turned into just being a piece on the Red Sox, hes made an entire post career out of it, can’t really fault him for wanting a chance at being immortalized in baseball lore.

With heyward leaving more guaranteed money on the table and taking less to go to the cubs with the opt out. I can see where heyward is coming from when he made that statement about the cardinals, their core is getting older, and the cubs have a great young core and still more young players in their farm.

Morton’s biggest problem seems to me to be between his ears, and I don’t really mean that as an insult. When he is locked in and focused, he’s sometimes unhittable. When he’s distracted or bothered, he is throwing batting practice. I wish him the best in his new home, but I think that the Bucs made the right decision to move on from him.

Sure looks like the Cubs star is rising. Not only have they developed a dynamic team, players outside of Chicago want to play on the Cubs team. Im looking forward to seeing what the Cubs do this year.

On a side note, because of the expectations, which seem justified and realistic, because of all that, no team in baseball has the potential to be a greater disappointment, and there are always two or three every year. It will also be interesting to see how they handle the attention and pressure.

Nick Kingham will be called up for the Pirates this season also at some point…and he projects to be a #3 guy in the rotation…so at the bare minimum a solid back end type innings eater. But the reality is that once Taillion and Glasnow get past the date for Super Two status, they will most likely be brought up if Vogelsong, Locke, or Niese are struggling.

If Glasnow and Taillion are as advertised, the 4 man playoff rotation of those two plus Cole and Liriano could be absolutely FILTHY!

However, I can envision a scenario where Taillion works out if the bullpen this season down the stretch due to innings limitations so that he is 110% healthy and ready to go for 2017.

Kingham is not expected in Pittsburgh this year according to what I read a couple of months ago. The word had it that the Bucs were taking him slower than most of their other guys that had a TJ recently. No idea why he is being handled differently. I agree that he will be here to help, especially in 2017′